Eleanor of England, Queen of Castile

Eleanor of England
Queen consort of Castile
Tenure	September 1180 – 5 October 1214
Spouse	Alfonso VIII of Castile
Detail Issue
Berengaria, Queen of Castile Urraca, Queen of Portugal Blanche, Queen of France Ferdinand of Castile Eleanor, Queen of Aragon Constance of Castile Henry I of Castile
House	House of Plantagenet
Father	Henry II of England
Mother	Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine
Born	13 October 1162(1162-10-13) Domfront Castle, Normandy
Died	31 October 1214 (aged 52) Burgos, Castile
Burial	Las Huelgas, Burgos

Eleanor of England (known in Castilian as Leonor; 13 October 1162 – 31 October 1214) was Queen of Castile and Toledo as wife of Alfonso VIII of Castile. She was a daughter of Henry II of England and his wife, Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine.

Early life

She was born in the castle at Domfront, Normandy, and was baptised by Henry of Marcy. She was the sixth child and second daughter of King Henry II of England and his wife, Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine.^[1] Her godfather was the chronicler Robert of Torigny, who had a special interest in her and recorded her life as best he could. She received her first name as a namesake of her mother, whose name "Eleanor" (or Alienor) had previously been unrecorded though may have been related to the Greek Helen or the Italian Elena. Another view holds that in the Occitan language, Eleanor simply meant "the other Aenor", since Eleanor of Aquitaine was named for her mother, called Aenor.

Family

Eleanor was a younger maternal half-sister of Marie de Champagne and Alix of France. She was a younger sister of William IX, Count of Poitiers, Henry the Young King, Matilda, Duchess of Saxony, Richard I of England and Geoffrey II, Duke of Brittany. She was also an older sister of Queen Joan of Sicily and King John of England.

Marriage

When she was 14 years old, in September 1176, she was married to King Alfonso VIII of Castile.^[2] The marriage was arranged to secure the Pyrennean border, with Gascony offered as her dowry.

Of all Eleanor of Aquitaine's daughters, her namesake Eleanor best inherited her mother's political influence. She was almost as powerful as her husband, who specified in his will that she was to rule alongside their son in the event of his death. It was she who persuaded him to marry their daughter Berengaria to the King of Leon in the interest of peace.

When Alfonso died, his Queen was reportedly so devastated with grief that she was unable to preside over the burial. Their eldest daughter, Berengaria, instead performed these honors. Eleanor then took sick and died only twenty-eight days after her husband, and was buried at Las Huelgas Abbey in Burgos.

Children

She and her husband had the following surviving issue.^[2]

• Berengaria, Queen of Castile (August 1180 - 8 November 1246), married King Alfonso IX of Leon
• Sancho of Castile (born & died 1181)
• Sancha of Castile (1182 - 3 February 1184)
• Henry of Castile (born & died 1184)
• Urraca of Castile (1186-1220), married King Alfonso II of Portugal
• Blanche of Castile (4 March 1188 – 26 November 1252), married King Louis VIII of France
• Ferdinand of Castile (29 September 1189 - 1211)
• Mafalda of Castile (1191-1204)
• Constance of Castile (1195-1198)
• Constance, Nun at Las Huelgas (1201-1243)
• Eleanor of Castile (1202-1244), married King James I of Aragon
• Henry I, King of Castile (14 April 1204 - 1217)

Ancestors

References

Sources

• Fraser, Antonia. The Middle Ages, A Royal History of England. University of California Press, 2000. ISBN 0520227999.
• Gillingham, John. "Events and Opinions: Norman and English Views of Aquitaine, c.1152–c.1204." The World of Eleanor of Aquitaine: Literature and Society in Southern France between the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, edd. Marcus Bull and Catherine Léglu. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2005. ISBN 1 84383 114 7.
• Rada Jiménez, Rodrigo. Historia de los hechos de España.
• Weir, Alison. Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy. London: Vintage Books, 2008. ISBN 009953973X.
• Wheeler, Bonnie, and Parsons, John Carmi. Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady. Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. ISBN 0230602363.

External links

• Adrian Fletcher’s Paradoxplace – Leonora’s Tomb in the Cistercian Nunnery of Santa Maria de Real Huelgas in Burgos, Spain